Japanese Katana by Hizen Tadatsugu dated 1940 with Suguha Hamon, Dragon Fittings and Red Lacquer Saya - NBTHK Hozon

• Signature (Mei): 肥前國住忠次追造之 (Hizen no Kuni ju Tadatsugu oi-tsukuru kore) · dated 皇紀二千六百年二月日 (a day in the second month of Koki 2600) · reverse 丸鍛肥前國忠吉 (maru-kitae, Hizen no Kuni Tadayoshi)
• Swordsmith: Tadatsugu 忠次 of Hizen Province
• School / Tradition: Hizen tradition, Saga · a declared homage to the Tadayoshi 忠吉 line
• Period / Province: Showa, dated February 1940 · Hizen (modern Saga Prefecture)
• Certificate: NBTHK Hozon Token no. 3035209, issued 23 August 2024
• Mounting: Complete katana koshirae with red-brown lacquered saya and dragon fuchi-kashira and menuki
• Blade Length (Nagasa): 68.8 cm (2 shaku 2 sun 7 bu)
• Curvature (Sori): 2.0 cm
• Mekugi-ana: 1 (ubu, unaltered)
• Shape (Sugata): Shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, chu-kissaki, deep and even torii-zori
• Jihada: Tightly forged ko-itame, the ji reading dark and uniform under a sashikomi polish
• Hamon: Suguha in nioi-deki, narrow and continuous from machi to kissaki
• Boshi: Suguha with a ko-maru turnback
• Habaki: Single-piece copper

This katana carries one of the most explicit signatures a collector can hope to read. On the omote the smith cut 肥前國住忠次追造之, Tadatsugu, resident of Hizen Province, made this in emulation, followed by the date 皇紀二千六百年二月日: a day in the second month of the 2600th year of the imperial calendar, which is February 1940. On the reverse he named exactly what he was emulating, 丸鍛肥前國忠吉, the maru-kitae work of Hizen no Kuni Tadayoshi. The blade was submitted to the NBTHK and papered Hozon Token under certificate no. 3035209 on 23 August 2024, the mei accepted as cut and recorded in full.

The blade measures 68.8 cm of nagasa (2 shaku 2 sun 7 bu) with 2.0 cm of sori. It is shinogi-zukuri with an iori-mune and a compact chu-kissaki, the curvature generous and evenly distributed rather than pushed toward the hilt. The nakago is ubu with a single mekugi-ana: nothing about this sword has been shortened, redrilled or re-signed since the day it left the forge in 1940.

The hamon is suguha, deliberately narrow, run in nioi-deki and held to the same width from the hamachi to the yokote before turning back as a tight ko-maru boshi. This is the hardest hamon a smith can attempt in public: a straight temper line hides nothing, and any wavering of the quench shows instantly. It is also precisely the temper that defined Hizen work from the early Edo period onward, which is why a smith paying homage to the Tadayoshi line chose it.

The ji is forged tight, reading as close ko-itame, and the blade is finished in a dark sashikomi-style polish that sets the whitish ha against a deep steel ground. The mention of maru-kitae in the signature is a technical statement: the blade is forged from a single homogeneous steel rather than a hard skin folded over a soft core, the same construction used on the early Hizen blades this sword answers to.

The sword is in good overall condition, complete with its koshirae, its copper habaki.

Koshirae Details

The saya is lacquered in a deep red-brown, polished to an even gloss with no decoration at all. It is a restrained choice that leaves the metalwork to carry the mounting, and it sets off the warm copper of the koiguchi and kurikata.

The tsuba is iron, round, with a broad symmetrical sukashi opening a pair of crescents on either side of the nakago-ana. There is no inlay and no signature; the piece relies entirely on the balance of solid and void and on the dark, softly textured surface of its forged iron. Two gilt copper seppa sit on either side.

The fuchi and kashira form a matched pair, worked in copper alloy with dragons in high relief coiling through clouds, the raised detail gilded against a stippled ground. The chiselling is deep and the scales, claws and whiskers are individually cut rather than cast flat.

The tsuka is bound in black ito over white same of good large grain, each opening revealing the nodes of the ray skin. Beneath the wrap sit gilt dragon menuki that answer the fuchi-kashira, so that the entire mounting carries a single theme. A black sageo completes the assembly.

The blade sits in a plain single-piece copper habaki cut with file marks, the workmanlike foundation the rest of the mounting is built on.

The Swordsmith: Tadatsugu 忠次 of Hizen

The signature 肥前國住忠次 places the smith in Hizen Province, modern Saga Prefecture, and the date places the work in February 1940. The name is generally identified with Nakao Tadatsugu 中尾忠次, civil name Nakao Sanjiro, born in 1910 and working from Saga; he trained under Horii Toshihide, one of the leading Showa masters, and was a kaigun jumei tosho, a swordsmith commissioned by the Imperial Navy. He had founded a forge in Saga City in 1937 with his brother, which places a blade of February 1940 squarely in his early independent period. We record this identification as the reading accepted in the literature rather than as a documented fact of this blade: the NBTHK certificate authenticates the signature, not a biography.

What the sword states for itself is unambiguous. The smith did not claim to be a Tadayoshi. He cut 追造之, made in emulation, and then named his model on the other face of the nakago. That is the signature of a craftsman working with his sources open, and it is far rarer, and far more honest, than the flattering signatures of the same decade.

Hizen Steel in the Year 2600

The Hizen tradition begins with Hashimoto Shinzaemon, the first Tadayoshi 忠吉 (1572–1632), who studied under Umetada Myoju in Kyoto and returned to Saga as official swordsmith to the Nabeshima clan. His line ran through nine generations and trained more than a hundred smiths, and it was known above all for two things: a flawless, densely forged ji and a clean suguha in nioi-deki. Hizen blades were made for daimyo service, and they were judged on precision rather than on drama.

1940 was the year Japan celebrated Koki 2600, the 2600th anniversary of the mythical founding of the empire by Emperor Jimmu. Smiths across the country dated their best work to that year and signed it with the imperial calendar rather than the Showa era, exactly as this blade does. The period had also brought traditional swordmaking back from near extinction: the great majority of blades produced in the 1930s and 1940s were oil-quenched factory work, and only those forged from tamahagane and water-quenched in the traditional manner are accepted for NBTHK papers today. This sword holds Hozon, which is the practical proof that it is a true gendaito and not a wartime production blade.

What is on offer here is a fully signed and dated blade, papered by the NBTHK, ubu with one mekugi-ana, cut with an honest emulation signature naming both its model and its forging method, and complete in a matched dragon-themed koshirae over a red-brown lacquered saya.